


Crush

by jazzfic



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-13
Updated: 2012-02-13
Packaged: 2017-10-31 02:16:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/338778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jazzfic/pseuds/jazzfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At first there is silence, time and action running at half-speed. The accident, when it happens, comes entirely without warning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crush

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2007, first posted to Livejournal.

At first there is silence, time and action running at half-speed. The accident, when it happens, comes entirely without warning.

But when the motion stops, and the dust settles, River, in the thin haze of consciousness as she stares at the cracked wreckage around her, starts to wonder if it is just another dream, come to steal her from this one night of carefree normality; a barn filled with merriment, a bonfire and company. The whirl of the dancing couples turned into the whirl of a broken engine.

There is no noise here. The feeling of joy she had felt earlier on has quickly been crushed, irreversibly, by the laws of physics. No other way to see it. No culpability but bad luck, a short circuit and a storm, lighting up the night sky and bringing their shuttle directly back to earth. River tells herself it is not his fault. Mal had seen her smile that evening and, mellow with wine, had pushed aside tiredness to volunteer as pilot. Her own hands at the controls would have made no difference to the outcome. Genius drunken is genius negated; she is afraid of pain, but not her own. Here, now, all that she feels is his.

"Ah, gorram it--" 

A spark jumps from wires unhooked like a carcass pecked clean by birds, and she tastes smoke and blood on her lips. His curses echo in the space between them and River gasps for air and feels her body tremble with relief. _He's okay_. The word crashes like the shuttle into the deep cavity of her chest, snapping her out of the haze. Awareness. Adrenaline. _He's okay_...She almost cries out but doesn't; rather, pressing her mouth shut, she watches him wake up.

He has a scar, a small welt on the underside of his wrist. Her eyes are drawn to it as he shifts hesitantly from where he has been slumped over the broken console and into a more upright position. There is a deep cut on his forehead, and he winces, touching it as if he doesn't know what it means. She shifts her torso, wriggles her toes and blinks. 

Mal looks at her.

"Damn storm," he says. In his eyes are an apology, guilt as only a man can show. He shakes his head, and coughs a cloud of smoke away. "I didn't see it..."

"Blindness," River murmurs, to herself. She lifts her voice so that it reaches his ears. "Taken from happiness. Nobody saw." She fixes her eyes on the scar again; it is a compass point, a scale, a weight. She tries to sit up. No pain, so she stands.

Immediately he waves an arm for her to stop, his face taught and breathing audible as the shuttle rocks and River takes three unsteady steps across the cabin. "It's okay," she says reassuringly, echoing the thought still pressing hard into her chest, adjusting it a little to generalise, to encompass the pair of them. "We can't fall any further than this."

He laughs suddenly. It turns into a cough, painful and hoarse. Mal closes his eyes. He looks as if he could sleep for an age, and then some more.

"No," he replies, "but darlin', we sure as hell can roll, an' I for one ain't lookin' to be hanging from the ceiling when the world's spinnin' about like a crazy-top."

If this is meant to make her stop it has little effect; she only stares at him, kneeling by his side so they are at eye level. Her skirt, a paisley, homespun thing River had rescued from the back of Kaylee's wardrobe, has a tear at the hem, and she taken it and pulls until it rips. The colours are earthy and warm, the fabric thin, but it does the job, and stops the bleeding. River holds the impromptu compress to her captain's forehead. They regard each other in silence, Mal's expression filtering from uncertainty to gratitude in a few short moments. His hands move to fiddle with the thin safety harness, drawn tightly across his stomach and hips. He makes little progress with this, and he curses under his breath until River takes the cloth away and unlocks the clasp with swifter, smaller fingers.

"There," she says firmly. But he is looking at her hands. The pale skin is flecked with blood; Mal takes them up as a pair in his own, and frowns. 

"You're hurt." 

"And you're marked." She touches his wrist where the veins zigzag and the tiny scar feels like a burr under her touch. "It's the same thing, only this one has a history, whereas blood washes away."

He doesn't like this; it reminds him of something else, another time, and his mouth forms a hard line, recognisable to River as a shutter window falling closed, encasing the man inside, and the whole world out. She leans back, giving him space, and in a softer voice says, "I don't mean to pry."

"Sure you don't, little one." He smiles a little, the uncertain moment passing, and she thinks he is about to continue but instead Mal lets her go, shifting back with a groan. Still kneeling, she eyes his progress out of the broken harness, and up onto two feet. 

River stands as well. Around them the smoke has settled, giving way to a sight that isn't so much shocking as it is depressingly familiar. "Think there's a higher force tryin' to tell me somethin?" the captain asks, peering down at the broken controls with a sigh.

She considers this. "Don't fly on a tankard of Pastor Vincent's wine?"

"And them some," he agrees. He makes to turn towards her but staggers. Grimacing, his body rocks and he shoots out a hand to steady himself against the bulkhead. "Hell...Doc's gonna have some patchin' to do when we get back." A glance in her direction, and suddenly he is peering into her eyes beneath his long lashes, wet with steam and smoke, and something else: understanding. "Can just picture the sparrin' under point of scalpel we'll be having, too, seein' it was me at the wheel."

Her stomach flutters; River shifts her gaze. He's taking responsibility where it shouldn't--needn't--be taken. She reaches his side again and gives him her weight as support. Together, in silence, they hold their hands over the airlock. It is jammed and needs their combined strength to creak it open.

"Son of a..."

Torchlight, powerful and strong, hits the captain's face. River stares into the light, unblinking, and she smiles.

"Emergency landing, was it, sir?"

Zoe takes in the two of them--bloodied, smiling, dress and shirt ripped--and takes Mal's arm, letting River go, to stand like a newborn calf on her own feet. She steps clear of the airlock, onto grass. It is dark; there are shapes, many shapes around them. A cow moos.

Whatever Mal's answer was to his first mate's query, River doesn't get to hear it. Before she can take another step forward she is swept into a crushing embrace on both sides of her small body. Kaylee laughs in one ear and her brother murmurs a strange combination of love, thanks, and blunt admonishment in the other.

"Tore your dress," River says, when at last they pull away. 

There are bemused smiles at this. She turns to Simon. "No sparring, okay? Not his fault. He looks out for me, and others, too: has the scars to prove it."

She watches her brother mull this over; she stares back, doesn't look away until she is sure he knows her meaning. Simon nods. "No sparring," he repeats.

River breathes slowly and takes in his warmth, holding the pair of them to her like she had held onto Mal. Then she lets go, and the separation almost crushes her. It is too cold.

Too cold to be alone.

At first there was silence, time and action running at half speed. Simon and Kaylee look back as River holds her hands up to her face, stands in the moonlit shadow of the wreckage, and thinks of the parts before, after, and in between. If she had never come, she would have nothing to remember. If she had closed her eyes, she might have missed it all.


End file.
